An upsurge of popular nationalism, tinged with antiforeign sentiments, swept China in 1996. As Beijing prepared for the peaceful takeover of Hong Kong on July 1, 1997, Chinese leaders used a display of military force to warn Taiwan against drifting toward formal independence. Deng Xiaoping, frail and ailing, turned 92 in August, but the once paramount leader was no longer a player in the political game. It seemed unlikely that he would be able to visit Hong Kong in 1997 to celebrate the end of British rule, which he had successfully negotiated in 1984. As Chinese leaders continued to jockey for position in the post-Deng era, they had to contend with the economic, social, and political consequences of Deng’s reforms. Meanwhile, China’s economy continued to hum along at a 10% growth rate. Inflation, moreover, was finally brought under control. The tension in Sino-U.S. relations eased somewhat in the second half of the year as Beijing directed its anger at Japan, which it accused of harbouring ambitions of regional domination. Chinese leaders traded on their country’s growing global economic strength to enhance their leverage on issues that they considered vital to Chinese security, particularly in respect to Taiwan and Tibet.

Domestic Affairs

Pres. Jiang Zemin dominated the Chinese political stage in 1996 in his triple capacity as general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC), head of state, and chairman of the CPC’s Central Military Commission. A cautious centrist rather than a bold innovator, Jiang continued to rule by consensus, undertaking no policy initiatives that might cause his colleagues to unite against him. There were no significant changes in the top leadership in 1996. Major Gen. Ba Zhongtan, head of the People’s Armed Police, resigned following the murder in February of Li Peiyao, vice-chairman of the National People’s Congress, during a bungled burglary. Beijing Mayor Li Qiyan, who had been implicated in the 1995 scandal that led to the purge of Political Bureau member Chen Xitong, was demoted to secretary of the CPC’s Committee of the Ministry of Labour. Wang Li, one of the last of the Cultural Revolution radicals, died at age 75.

A popular best-seller, The China That Can Say No, authored by Song Qiang and two other youthful writers, angrily denounced the U.S. for subverting the national aspirations of the Chinese and poisoning the wellsprings of their culture with Hollywood films and Western fast food. Popular nationalism complemented official nationalism but also challenged it to be more active in defending Chinese interests. Jiang wrapped himself tightly in the banner of Chinese nationalism while promoting the rather amorphous concept of socialist spiritual civilization. This was the main theme of his address to the October plenum of the CPC Central Committee. The communiqué affirmed economic reform as the central task of the CPC but stressed that the party had yet to solve the problem of promoting ideological, educational, ethical, and cultural progress. Energetic campaigns were launched to curb such national bad habits as spitting, littering, smoking, and cursing in public. Otherwise, socialist spiritual civilization seemed to be a euphemism for domestic law-and-order policies and the maintenance of tight controls over culture, literature, and the arts. For example, Wang Shuo, the popular novelist who chronicled Beijing lowlife, was criticized for decadence. The CPC deferred any serious initiatives to grapple with major economic and social issues at least to its 15th Congress, which would convene in late 1997 in the afterglow of the recovery of Hong Kong.

Lacking a distinctive vision for the future, the CPC reveled in its revolutionary past, glorifying the heroism of the famous Long March, the 60th anniversary of which was widely celebrated on stage and screen and in song. Jiang used the occasion to reemphasize a favourite theme, the loyalty of the People’s Liberation Army to the CPC. Jiang’s neoconservative nationalism presented the CPC as indispensable in holding Chinese society together and guiding China toward prosperity and greatness.

The CPC stepped up its campaign against rampant corruption, criticizing cadres (government and party officials) for wasting public funds by such means as extravagant banquets and unessential travel. In October Chinese prosecutors filed criminal charges against Zhou Beifang and 29 others, including two ex-Beijing officials. Zhou, who reportedly paid millions in bribes to corrupt officials in return for favours, was the son of the former chairman of Capital Iron and Steel Corp. and a confidant of Deng. The Central Committee for Discipline Inspection called for harsher punishment of corrupt officials while declaring that ethical and cultural progress should not be sacrificed in the name of economic development. This was one of several implicit criticisms of Deng’s reforms. A thorough critique of the reforms was contained in the unpublished but widely circulated "Ten Thousand Character Essay," attributed to the conservative ideologue Deng Liqun. The tract, which warned that the CPC’s hold on power was seriously threatened by the rise of a new Chinese bourgeoisie, revived the old Maoist emphasis on class struggle. This viewpoint was challenged by Cao Siyuan, a leading reformer who had been purged in 1989. In an article published in an obscure provincial economics journal, he argued that reform was the only way the CPC could retain power, but it would do so only if it stopped meddling in all aspects of social life. Authorities forbade republication of the article.

In April Beijing launched a new and well-publicized campaign called yanda ("strike hard") against violent crime, which shot up 13% in 1995. Within the first two months, according to estimates by Amnesty International, 100,000 illegal firearms were seized nationwide, tens of thousands of alleged criminals arrested, and 1,000 executed. On the information front Chinese leaders ordered stepped-up monitoring of computer bulletin boards and blocked access to numerous sites on the World Wide Web. These included those operated by foreign newspapers, human rights groups, overseas dissidents, and the Voice of America.

Chinese leaders were equally determined to root out the vestiges of domestic dissent. They brushed aside international criticism of the 14-year prison term imposed in 1995 on Wei Jingsheng, who received the European Union’s prestigious Andrey Sakharov Prize for Human Rights. In October Wang Dan, a student leader of the 1989 democracy movement, was sentenced to 11 years in prison on charges of conspiring to overthrow the government. The specific charges included publishing critical articles in foreign newspapers, raising money abroad for needy dissidents, and accepting a scholarship from the University of California. Another Chinese democrat, Liu Xiaobo, was sentenced to three years in a labour camp. Along with Wang Xizhe, he had drafted a letter critical of Jiang and called on the CPC to honour political and human rights. Wang Xizhe managed to escape from China and was granted political asylum in the U.S. After his release from prison in May, Bao Tong was kept in seclusion outside Beijing. He had been the top aide to Zhao Ziyang, the CPC chief purged in 1989. As a small gesture to the U.S. on the eve of Secretary of State Warren Christopher’s November visit to Beijing, China released dissident Chen Ziming, who was suffering from cancer. Chinese leaders also put Hong Kong on notice that freedom of the press, as well as free speech and assembly, would be curtailed after 1997, solemn promises to the contrary notwithstanding. Hong Kong papers, for example, would be forbidden to advocate independence for Taiwan or to engage in political advocacy.

In January, Human Rights Watch/Asia, a U.S. organization, using information supplied by a former staff physician at Shanghai’s largest orphanage, charged officials there with deliberately starving unwanted orphans to death. China acknowledged an unusually high infant mortality rate at the orphanage but angrily denied the allegations, branding them part of an ongoing effort to besmirch China’s international reputation.

Trouble again flared in Tibet. In May monks at the Ganden monastery attacked Chinese police and officials after the imposition of a ban on photographs of the Dalai Lama. The police stormed the monastery, shot 2 monks, and arrested 100 others. Beijing threatened economic reprisals against such countries as Australia, whose leaders disregarded Chinese warnings by meeting with the Dalai Lama. The Tibet Daily, the CPC’s mouthpiece in the region, urged Tibetans to embrace atheism in order to counter the influence of the Dalai Lama. This was tantamount to asking Tibetans to renounce their cultural identities. In September Premier Li Peng reminded restive Muslims in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region that they had to obey the law and support socialism. Violent clashes erupted between Muslim separatists and Chinese authorities, and in May China tightened border controls to curb arms smuggling from Central Asia.

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